The essence of the value of public accounts . Is it the number of fans? Number of reads? Obviously neither.
People are attracted by the appearance of things and tend to solve superficial problems while ignoring essential problems.Take the operation of public accounts, which is the most distressing for us operators nowadays. Everyone has invested a lot, but in the past one or two years, it is obvious that the reading rate of most public accounts has decreased instead of increased: clickbait, chasing hot topics, praising popularity, jokes, burning money to hold various activities... They use every possible means, but the results always seem to be separated from expectations by a wall.The public accounts that attract much attention on the stage will always belong to those few unattainable stars at the top of the tower.How do they do it? How can we fundamentally break free from the vicious cycle of blind efforts?This article will uncover the surface of public account operations and point to three fundamental problems:
How should the value of a public account be defined?
How to fundamentally enhance the value of public accounts?
How to create a unique public account?
1. Understanding the value of public accounts is the starting point for operating public accountsJudging from the feedback from friends of the “少加点班” public account, to this day, many companies still use the number of fans, reading rate and sharing rate as evaluation indicators for public account operations.Although these indicators are easy to quantify, visible and tangible, they are the most misleading indicators. I believe that they contain various paradoxes:For example, if you pursue the number of fans as your goal, then the content positioning must be entertaining, low-end, and popular; if your target users are not this group, then what is the point of pursuing the number of fans?For example, if you blindly pursue reading rates and sharing rates, the content will inevitably be led by hot topics, clickbait titles, and sensational content... It may seem effective in the short term, but in the long run, the content will be homogenized and highly substitutable, which will naturally lead to the dilemma of users "coming and going in a hurry."In other words, when the number of fans reaches a certain level and the number of fans lost is equal to the number of fans gained, it becomes very embarrassing: at this time, you want to change your positioning, but you are worried about a large-scale loss of fans (the tragedy of blindly following the wrong KPI). If you keep the status quo, it seems that you can't go up any further.So where is the root cause of the problem?——First understand the essence of the value of the official account. Is it the number of fans? Number of reads? Obviously neither.PS: Some friends may say that doesn’t the XX chicken soup brand have a monthly turnover of millions or tens of millions? Please note that this is an era where "self-promotion" talents are emerging in large numbers. Please view the data reported by various so-called commercial media and big Vs with an entertaining attitude. In addition, some big accounts can indeed get advertisements from certain clients for a while, but "cheating" is destined to only make a quick buck and run away. No outstanding company can be "cheated".I mentioned in my previous article “Introduction to Operations” that the commercial value of Internet products depends on: the number of users, the quality of users, and the influence of the product on users, and depends on the “shortcomings” of these three factors. This principle is completely applicable to the value formula of official accounts. After all, for many content-driven companies, the official account itself is a product.According to this definition, we can easily convert it into the value formula of the official account:The value of a public account = the number of active fans * the quality of fans * the influence on fansI don’t know if you have noticed that in the above formula, I don’t even include the total number of subscribers, which is what operators care about most nowadays, in the core parameters.The following is a brief explanation of each parameter:Number of active followers: To put it simply, this is the number of followers who will follow your tweets. If you don’t tweet for a while, they will chase you in the background and ask you “Are you not feeling well recently and haven’t been able to tweet in time…”Fan quality: Simply put, it refers to the quality, social status, wealth, income, etc. of subscribers. The more uniform the user characteristics and the higher the quality of the group, the higher the quality of the fans.For a public account whose subscribers are all founders and executives of large companies, even if it has only a few thousand subscribers, its value is far higher than that of a public account with tens of millions of subscribers.For example, Noah Wealth was able to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange relying solely on thousands of customer resources, because its customer base consists of high-net-worth individuals from both China and abroad, and its "user quality" is extremely high.Influence on fans : Influence is the most important but most easily overlooked factor. The so-called influence here specifically refers to the influence of the official account (operator) on the decision-making of its subscribed users.For example, public accounts that focus on gossip, entertainment, or "chicken soup articles" often have a large number of subscribers. However, these users come for the entertainment content, and the public accounts themselves do not have much appeal, trust, or influence on subscribers. If this type of public account sends a soft promotional message to its subscribers one day, how high can the conversion rate be?In other words, influence is directly related to the commercial monetization ability of a public account.For example, why did the public account "Hun Zi Yue" (which started out with funny comics and historical content) begin to adjust its positioning from historical topics to high-tech and automotive topics after receiving financing ? It is to attract higher-level users.Therefore, if your public account is facing the following problems: the number of fans increases but the number of readers does not increase, or the increase in fans is not as much as the loss of fans, or the number of people participating in the activities you planned is very small, then you might as well compare it with the above value formula to see which parameter the problem lies.Of course, if you are about to start operating a new official account, you can also make an overall plan based on the parameters of this value formula.2. Four strategies to enhance the substantive value of public accountsAccording to the public account value evaluation formula, if the evaluation results of the public accounts we currently operate (including personal public accounts and corporate public accounts) are not optimistic, how should we solve it?In response to this problem, Li Shaojia proposed four effective methods to enhance the value of public accounts, which can solve various "difficult and complicated problems" such as low user activity rate, user growth bottleneck, and poor business conversion ability.Measure 1: Continue to meet subscribers’ expectationsAs mentioned before, most friends who operate public accounts have discovered some strange phenomena. When the number of subscribers of the public account reaches a certain level, "every time a post is made, a large number of followers will be lost, and it is safer not to post." What is going on?In fact, some subscribers don’t really want to follow anymore, but the cost of deliberately “unfollowing” is a bit high, and some people are just “too lazy to unfollow” temporarily. And here, one tweet just gave them the opportunity to unfollow me.So, who might be potential “too lazy to unfollow” users?Those are the “inactive fans”. According to the current situation in the industry, the active subscription user rate should be less than 5%. Isn’t this terrifying to think about? This means that many public accounts have already reached a growth bottleneck, but the absolute number of subscribers is still increasing, giving people the illusion of growth.Where is the answer to the solution?You can find a solution by following the motivations that led your subscribers to follow you in the first place. Users follow you (except for subscribers attracted by "benefit temptations" such as activities) often because your content touches them and is valuable to them.There are so many public accounts nowadays. If a user chooses to follow you instead of other accounts, it means that he has a certain degree of "expectation" for your content, especially the "subsequent content".This is just like when a man and a woman are dating. When the boy is pursuing a girl, he dresses neatly every day and looks elegant, which gives the girl endless fantasies. However, once he gets the girl, he returns to his nature of being a "picky-footed man", speaking rudely and being unkempt. How can the breakup rate not be high?Similarly, we operators cannot treat subscribers badly. We should be responsible and continue to meet their expectations for content to ensure that users remain active.To meet user expectations, here are three suggestions:Recommendation 1: The quality of each tweet should not be lower than that of previous tweetsThe most misleading view of many early " operational dry goods " is: ensure the frequency of public account tweets, update them every day... These statements lack consideration for users (readers). Of course, from the operator's point of view, daily tweets mean that the daily reading data in the public account statistics background is very stable, but what is the meaning and value of this stable "number" to users?Remember, if you treat users' time as dirt, users will also treat you as dirt. When users read your articles, they are spending their precious time. There are so many high-quality content accounts now. If we cannot give our fans the impression that they can continuously obtain high-quality content, why would users pay attention to us?Tip 2: Keep your content clearThe idea of winning the battle for minds emphasized in the book "Positioning" is completely applicable to the current content operations of public accounts.The content of some public accounts has no positioning at all: one day is chicken soup, one day is gossip, and the next day is dry goods . They chase hot topics (the tragedy of wrong KPI) and do not consider the expectations of subscribers for the content at all.When users choose an account, they are often attracted by its content in a specific field and expect its ability to continuously output high-quality content. However, if a public account on maternal and child health promotes a few chicken soup articles or emotional articles, it will inevitably disappoint many subscribers and cause them to cancel their follow-up.I recommend a method to check whether the positioning of your official account is clear. Can you answer your friend’s question in one sentence: What does your official account do?If people are still confused after you explain for a long time, it means that there is a problem with the positioning of the official account.Some friends may ask, some big Vs seem to post some simple articles casually every day and get a lot of likes and rewards, don’t they have any positioning? To explain, after some big Vs become famous, their attributes have changed from "experts" to "celebrity" characteristics. For example, even if G.E.M. just says "haha" on Weibo, it will still attract millions of reads and reposts. However, we are not all "stars".
The appearance can be inferred from the essence, but the opposite is to generalize and be biased.
Suggestion 3: Change your perspective and give up low-value articlesThis means "resetting the author's perspective" and re-examining the article from the user's perspective.I always do this for the articles on my public account "Less Work". After each article is written, I will review and revise it repeatedly. By the time you see the tweets, they have usually been revised by me more than five or six times... Only articles that I have repeatedly confirmed to be of substantive and high value to readers will be pushed out. So far, the number of articles that have failed my self-inspection has reached dozens, totaling more than 100,000 words, which is equivalent to the length of a book.Let me share my own "self-examination" ideas: I usually read the whole book several times with 4 questions in mind:
What questions does this article raise?
Does this question have any substantive value, or is it just a castle in the air?
Does the article address the issue?
Is the statement about the solution to the problem clear enough for users to understand?
Of course, if it is a public account with other content types, this idea can also be "adaptively transplanted".Summary of the strategy to enhance the value of public accounts: the public account's positioning is always clear, the quality is always high, and self-examination is performed before each post. By reducing the number of pushed articles (if the quality is not up to standard), it is not a problem to continuously increase the number of active fans.Measure 2: Improve the “personality charm” of the official accountThe number of subscribers does not equal influence. The essence of influence is the "personal charm" of the operating entity.If we observe the people around us, we will realize that a small number of people are born with the "talent" to attract and convince others. However, this is not innate, but a personalized charm that is gradually cultivated (consciously or unconsciously) after birth.In the psychology book "Influence", the author attributes people's influence on others to six core elements: reciprocity, commitment and consistency, social identity, liking, authority, and scarcity. I attribute a person's "personal charm" to four elements: authority, integrity, naturalness, and fun. These are all things that our operators must polish step by step.1. AuthorityAuthority does not come from a person's social class or title. Authority should be the result of people's highly professional abilities or contributions in a certain field. The content of our official account can cultivate a sense of authority among users through the following efforts:
Demonstrate expertise in the direction of your content;
Key arguments should be well-reasoned and authoritative references should be cited as much as possible;
The writing style is steady, and the style does not change frequently;
2.How should the content of an honest public account reflect integrity? This comes from the little bit of behavioral shaping in daily life.For example, when we occasionally organize activities, are the promises fulfilled? Have all users been informed of the results after redemption (if not informed, it means no redemption)? In addition, as the saying goes, a person’s writing reflects his character. In daily writing, the viewpoints discussed, the cases cited, and the jokes can all indirectly show whether the author (operator) is responsible and has high moral character.3. NatureIn reality, we will find that the influence of self-media public accounts is generally higher than that of corporate public accounts. A big reason is that the subjects of self-media are flesh-and-blood individuals who naturally possess natural personalized attributes: spirituality, attitude, and affinity.So, how do we make content reflect “natural” attributes?The trick is: return to yourself, tell the truth, and speak human language. A person is most attractive when he is being himself.The content of a public account is essentially an extension of the operator’s thoughts and soul, and a communication of brand awareness.For corporate public accounts, they can fully draw on the ideas of personal self-media, combine their own content positioning, and shape the corresponding natural person image: for example, it can be a caring sister, a warm uncle, or a cute girl, and continue to narrate in the same character's tone.Many fans of Luoji Siwei said that they like Lao Luo not because of his outstanding content, but because of the natural affinity in his words and deeds.4. FunIt is said that if you live in the United States, you are not welcome without a sense of humor. In fact, the word "humorous" is a bit narrow to describe it. A more appropriate word would be "interesting". Being friends with an interesting person is simply a pleasure. He can enhance the life experience of those around him with his infectious optimism.Being interesting is not just a trivial skill like telling a few witty remarks. Being interesting is the product of a person's wisdom, emotional intelligence, and expressive ability. It is usually unique and can leave a deep impression in the minds of users, similar to a brand label.In short, the "personal charm" of a public account cannot be acquired overnight. It requires clear positioning and has high requirements for the breadth and depth of knowledge of the "editor". In this process, we operators do not necessarily need to deliberately please everyone, which often backfires.Measure 3: Commercialization based on a “win-win” premiseMost public accounts exist for commercial profit, which is understandable. People or organizations need to survive. Especially for public accounts that serve as "content products", when the number of subscribers reaches a certain level, many of them need commercial monetization.However, users of public accounts are the bread and butter of enterprises. For most public accounts at present, there is a high risk of losing fans every time they realize commercialization, especially the thoughtless and irresponsible commercial conversion is tantamount to killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.For example, many celebrities endorse certain unscrupulous corporate brands without in-depth research, and end up getting into trouble and being spurned by many fans. This kind of thing is not uncommon. This is similar to the failed commercial monetization of public accounts.The solution is to create a "win-win situation" - the best commercial realization is actually to provide users with responsible services, and there is no "discord" with the content of the official account. This is the foundation for any business to develop sustainably and healthily.For example, if "working less overtime" is to be commercialized one day, three principles must be adhered to:1. It must be a knowledge-based product that brings real value to subscribers;2. In-depth assessment of whether the cooperating products (goods) are genuine and reasonably priced;3. Merchants must be asked to offer a lower price than the external price.In other words, every commercial conversion gives priority to the interests of fans. For example, fans who really need a certain product can get better products at a lower price because of my recommendation.As the public's awareness of rights protection increases, integrity and morality will be the business foothold of future enterprises.Measure 4: Keep the WeChat Official Account AdaptableRegardless of the type of public account, its subscribers will grow and have their own life cycle. Once users enter the aging stage (aesthetic fatigue of content or rising cognitive level), loss is inevitable. This is why the active groups of most public accounts are the 30% of new subscribers who follow later.So, what operational strategies do we have to extend the life cycle of subscribers?We can optimize this problem from three levels:1. On the content level, follow the growth of users and launch multi-level content: for example, for public accounts that provide practical information for junior white-collar workers, some content related to corporate management and venture capital can be slowly infiltrated upwards, and clearly mark which type of people are suitable for reading, so as to satisfy multiple different levels of groups by vertically expanding the content.2. On the format level, continue to learn from excellent content presentation styles to optimize content formats: for example, from pure text, text and pictures, infographics, audio, short videos , based on reading scenarios (such as audio is suitable for subways and buses) and changes in user reading tastes, try more.3. For purely "content-based" public accounts, tool -type attributes can also be added: for example, public accounts for emotional information can provide users with emotional problem consultation services, etc.After all, users will never get tired of tools, just like air conditioning, even though it is turned on every day in summer, we cannot live without it.Finally, during the process of optimizing and adjusting the content, we must not forget to always observe and analyze the data changes of each tweet during the same period. For example, the tweet data at noon on Tuesday this week should be compared with the data at noon last Tuesday (remember to eliminate the impact of new users within a week), rather than compared with Monday or Wednesday. In addition, tweets must be of the same type of topic to be comparable, so as to improve the accuracy of data analysis .In the future, Li Shaojia boldly asserts that the competition in public account operations will be extremely fierce. For operators, simply screening, organizing, reconstructing and presenting high-quality content will only be the most basic threshold. Even if it is equipped with good interactive services or operating a community , it is still not enough to become an "excellent public account."So, then, how can we become an excellent public account?3. Repositioning: How to create a unique public accountLet’s review the formula for evaluating the value of a public account:The value of a public account = number of active fans * quality of fans * influence on fansTherefore, to operate a valuable public account nowadays, the basic prerequisite is to ensure that the public account has a clear positioning, that the content theme is highly relevant to the target users, and that the content quality is refined and strengthened. Otherwise, it will be impossible to influence users, let alone attract active users.Therefore, if you make a mistake in positioning the content of a public account, it will be very embarrassing in the future.Methodology of public account positioningLi Shaojia shared a more scientific and feasible public account positioning methodology.Let’s first look at some public account positioning that is out of balance at all levels:Treat the official account as a mobile version of the official website: The core value of the "official website" of a traditional enterprise is to establish a trusting relationship with customers, partners, or potential applicants. On the surface, it usually contains some information that demonstrates the company's software and hardware strengths, such as the best employer, Fortune 500... But what does this have to do with subscribers?The content positioning is clear, but the content quality control is insufficient: Although new media content operations are commonly known as "editors", the importance of their work is not small at all: they play an important role in topic selection (taste) and quality control. In my opinion, it is not important to have no original ability. If you can strictly review and ensure the high quality of each tweet, and ensure that the content of the public account combines the strengths of everyone, you can still create a content brand. But if you just follow the crowd and are led by popular articles, the result will be nothing but a joke.Content and products cannot be combined: The content of many corporate public accounts is completely disconnected from the main business, and they promote articles based on what is popular at the moment. However, regardless of the "fan-attracting" effect of such tweets, even if they are lucky enough to gain some fans, these users have nothing to do with the company's main products, so what's the point?Having discussed the above-mentioned pitfalls in content positioning of public accounts that need to be avoided, let’s talk about how to position yourself if you want to become a unique and original public account. There are three steps:
Analyze demands and limit scope
Value combination, original positioning
Evaluate costs and make decisions
Positioning step 1: Analyze demands and limit scopeLet’s observe and think about it from the user’s perspective. For a subscribing user, what is the purpose of following a public account?In fact, there are only three types of "things": those that bring emotional pleasure, those that have practical value, and those that bring material benefits.So, for enterprises, what is our core demand in operating a public account?In essence, it is nothing more than three things: serving as a channel for users (potential product users) to pay attention, continuously expanding the influence of the official account (through fan forwarding or word-of-mouth), and quickly establishing trust between users and companies (this is similar to the value of traditional official websites).After such analysis, we can limit the content positioning of the official account to a more precise range:The intersection of the two in the above picture is our official account positioning target. Simply put, it is highly related to the company's products or brands, and can provide users with three types of valuable content.Remember, these two must be true at the same time.For example, celebratory content such as "a company won the title of the best employer in the industry of the year" only reflects the company's brand (accelerating the trust chain) but has no interest in the user, so it is not suitable to be published on the official account.According to my idea, in fact, we only need to analyze one by one the specific value that the content of the official account can bring to its subscribers, and extract the parts related to the company's products and brands (here we only discuss content positioning, and the service positioning of WeChat service accounts is not within the scope of discussion). The following will elaborate on the three types of user demands mentioned above.1. Experience ValueThat is, content that brings emotions and fun to users:For example, life experience categories expand users' life experiences (novels often provide this value, allowing users to experience worlds or characters that they would not normally have the opportunity to experience); humor and comedy categories relieve users' mental stress and negative emotions; interest and hobby categories provide high-quality content that satisfies the interests of people who are interested in various niche areas, such as tea culture, flower arrangement, sports, history, mathematics, etc.; others include content that brings users aesthetic pleasure or deep ideological resonance. Finally, there is a particularly large category, which is content that provides a sense of social superiority, which will be discussed later.2. Practical valuePractical value refers to providing users with information, tools and services necessary for daily life and work.For example, work needs may include work skills and knowledge, personal efficiency improvement, workplace social interaction, job search strategies, intermediary services for job hopping interviews, etc.; life needs more, such as clothing fashion trends, food recommendations, travel strategies, photography skills, health and beauty, children's growth and education, news and current affairs, etc.3. Material ValueThis is relatively easy to understand, that is, it can provide direct material benefits to subscribers. Generally speaking, there are two types of platforms that provide material value. One is a discount information aggregation platform that serves as a "special offer" (similar to " What's Worth Buying "), and the other is a platform that provides event promotion for other companies (usually vouchers, gifts, etc.).Positioning step 2: Value combination, original positioningAccording to the above analysis, can we just select a few topics related to the company's products as content positioning? I think that if you operate the official account without any greater "new media strategy" goal, and merely use it as an auxiliary tool for operating products, then achieving this level can be said to be average and not falling behind others, but it is also not worthy of the word "excellent".In an environment where tens of millions of public accounts coexist today, no matter how vertical and segmented the content topics we choose are, I believe there are many highly homogenized public accounts in this field. To be fair, in many areas, the overall content quality of public accounts’ tweets is constantly improving, and the strength of most similar public accounts is comparable.Therefore, if we want to stand out, we need to go one step further and become a "unique" public account.How to be unique?In fact, we have already limited the content through the analysis in the previous step. We just need to go a little further: by combining several or even multiple value elements mentioned above, we can often produce more attractive and original public accounts.This is exactly the same as when we play games , combining several ordinary equipment to create a powerful unique weapon.For example, combining the three elements of "history", "comics" and "humor" together is the famous "Hunzi Yue" (a public account of history and comics. You see, I promote it for free for its good content);For example, the combination of the three elements of "emotional consultation", "emotional resonance" and "gaining empathy or superiority" (perceiving happiness from others' misfortunes) is "Ayawawa" (a female emotional public account);Alternatively, combining the three elements of "tea culture", "tea quality identification" and "promotional discounts" together would form "The Tea Shop of Local Folks" (a public account of tea e-commerce ).There are many similar public accounts.Through "value reorganization" in various directions, we can spark and inspire more creativity when our operators are positioning the content of the official account. When we continue to research, improve and create, we can often form an original official account with differentiated competitive barriers.Positioning step three: Evaluate costs and adopt decisionsOf course, completing the initial positioning does not mean that the job is over. We still have to actually produce one or two episodes of content, evaluate factors such as the time required for the entire production process, the operating manpower costs, the additional resources required, and whether it is sustainable and productive.Everything has its pros and cons. This type of public account with a strong sense of originality often requires a very high content production cost, and the frequency of content push is bound to be far less than that of ordinary public accounts (for example, Hunziyue usually only pushes one post a week).Therefore, whether an enterprise should invest in creating high-quality new media should be determined by the positioning of new media in the company's overall operational strategy.In the early stages of content investment after the new positioning, it is still necessary to evaluate user feedback on the content. If the content production cost is extremely high, but user feedback is merely “not bad”, it means that the “input-output ratio” of this positioning is not high, and continuous adjustments and trial and error are needed.With the current speed of mobile Internet dissemination, a successful and original public account should have a very fast content sharing and dissemination rate, and drive user growth. The public accounts I just mentioned have achieved an astonishing dissemination volume in their first few tweets after they were successfully positioned. If we cannot achieve that, we need to rethink and reposition ourselves.Conclusion:In this article, we only discuss the most critical and core issues in the operation of WeChat official accounts : how to define the value of official accounts, how to enhance the value, and how to reposition and create original official accounts. I think that once we think through these issues, attracting user attention, spreading content, etc. will be a natural process.To conclude, a WeChat public account must insist on providing real value to subscribers. If it cannot do so, it is best not to open it easily.The suffix of my previous articles on my public account was a motto of my own making: A wise man has three responsibilities: being responsible for other people's time, being responsible for other people's minds, and being responsible for other people's interests. This can be regarded as the golden rule for operating a public account.
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